Playing tapes recorded on a Tascam 688 on a Yamaha MT8X. Yes/No?

Level Anything

Level Anything

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I've asked friends, and have looked all over the web for the answer to this but seems like nobody knows.

Can I play a tape recorded on the Tascam 688 on my Yamaha MT8X?

I've looked at the head designs on both and it looks like it I might be able to as they both have the same staggered track layout with tracks 1,3,5,7 on the first part of the head, and then 2,4,6,8 on the next part (it's a split head design). I'm hoping someone here might have tried it, or has some experience switching tapes between manufacturers.

The reason I'm asking is because someone has asked to send me some tapes they recorded on a 688 so I can transfer them to digital and I don;t want them to send them to me and then I have to just send them back.

I know that the 688 can record all 8 at once, while my MT8X can only do up to 4 at a time so that's making me wonder is the Tascam has a proprietary head design, to the point where the tracks won't line up on anything else except another Tascam.

Thanks to anyone who can give me some insight here.
 
In theory if the heads are lined up the same, it should work.

Even though the yamaha only records four tracks at once, I'll bet it plays back all 8 tracks. Otherwise how would one mix.

Is the yammi dbx? Were the 688 tracks recorded with dbx?

Sorry, thats the best answer I got for you...a semi useless one. :D
 
I'll take it at this point. If anyone else has a useless response feel free to weigh in.

Yes, the MT8X is DBX II NR as does the 688. It plays back all 8 tracks at once (Imagine if they'd released an 8-track that only played back 4 tracks at a time? "Hey, we said you can record 8-tracks. We never said anything about playing them all back at the same time!") but can only record 4 at a time. That's why I was thinking that it would be a different head design but I was over at another forum and what I've found is this...

The head designs are mirrored. So, while the Tascams have tracks 2,4,6,8 on the left side of the rec/play head and 1,3,5,7 on right, the Yamaha has opposite (1,3,5,7 on the left, and 2,4,6,8 on the right) If that makes sense. I found a picture of both the heads. So, this means I should be fine when it comes to simply playing back a tape for digitizing. The only thing different would be the tracks would be flipped with track one becoming 2, and so forth.

Even if there's a 100ms delay between them I can fix that after they're in Pro Tools. I just need to get them off the tape.

There's barely anything written about 8-track cassette recorders out there. I never had one back in the late 90's when I started recording on 4-track. I remember seeing the 488 MKII in a catalog and thinking it was incredible (albeit way out of my grasp at $1,050). I still do actually. I found this thing NOS last xmas and have used it maybe twice. Bleed can be a bitch sometimes, but it's got a really cool sound to it. Surprisingly rich for the track width.

I'm going to try this out and come back and finish up the mystery here when I do. There's a couple other threads out there like this that somebody said they were going to try it and see if it worked and then they rode off into the sunset and never returned to tell the tale. I won't do that. I don't think. I hope.
 
Yeah, it would be nice to know. I would imagine it would work to some degree, since what both machines are doing is taking a known standard (4-track cassette) and doubling it up. To keep the head elements at the maximum distance from each other they'd have to end up in the same place.

What might go wrong is if the head staggering is inverted, but as you say, that can be trivially fixed in a DAW.
 
I agree

If the noise reduction is the same, that is key...and the spacing of the actual heads (each track) would have to be close if not the same. It is possible they might be the slightest bit different, but likely not enough to be a concern, and if the actually positioning of the staggered heads is different you can, as you said, fix that in the box.

As has been identified, how many tracked each of the different machines can record simultaneously doesn't matter. They both play back 8 at a time. As an aside, the Tascam 488 series is just like your Yamy MT8X; records up to 4 tracks simultaneously but plays back up to 8 simultaneously.

The proof will be "in the pudding"...you won't know how well this all works until you try it out. You might run into sonic issues on edge tracks if there are minor differences between the mechanical alignment of each machine, and there may be differences if the azimuth is substantially different...I wouldn't worry about these things but they *may* contribute to there being issues, but can't really know until you try it out.

Would love to know how this ends up working out. It *should* work.
 
So, I finally got a definitive answer for the "Can I play tapes recorded on a Tascam 688 on my Yamaha MT8X?" question. I did it tonight and worked out beautifully. Everything sounded great and there were no problems whatsoever. The tape was recorded with dbx noise reduction, which the MT8X also uses so I was able to digitize it with no problems.

So, one can assume that a tape recorded on a 488, 238, or a 688 is compatible with the Yamaha MT8X.
 
Level Anything said:
So, I finally got a definitive answer for the "Can I play tapes recorded on a Tascam 688 on my Yamaha MT8X?" question. I did it tonight and worked out beautifully. Everything sounded great and there were no problems whatsoever. The tape was recorded with dbx noise reduction, which the MT8X also uses so I was able to digitize it with no problems.
So, one can assume that a tape recorded on a 488, 238, or a 688 is compatible with the Yamaha MT8X.
Click to expand...

Awesome. What happened with the head staggering? Did that need any adjustment or did they match up after all?
 
I thought for sure there'd that flip, but everything was the same. There was smpte on track 8 and it came up on track 8 on the MT8X and everything was normal. I'm still shocked that they got 8 tracks to fit on a 1/8" of tape and it sounds as good as it does. There wasn't any cross-talk either.
 
Excellent! A victory!
Also you have blazed the trail and gotten on the internet the definitive answer to the question.
:D
 
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